Learn How to Sail on the Friends Good Will!

Friends Good Will - Courtesy of Michigan.org

Having taken an excursion on the Friends   Good Will, I can tell you she is a beautiful and interesting ship with heritage which ties her to both Michigan and the War of 1812. She is a unique member of the fleet of Tall Ships which encircle Michigan. The Michigan Maritime Museum (MMM) owns and operates Friends Good Will as an educational and historic ambassador. Starting March 28, you have an opportunity to learn, train and possibly sail on this ship. The information below was provided by the MMM and is an open invitation to those who wish to experience 19th century sailing. 

The Michigan Maritime Museum is offering Basic Seamanship classes aboard their replica tallship Friends Good Will, beginning on March 28, 2015. Basic Seamanship Sail Training Program is open to all (14 year old minimum) regardless of experience.  You’ll find that Friends Good Will draws crew from all of West Michigan, Northern Indiana and Illinois, and parts of Wisconsin as well as all walks of life.

Sailing a traditionally rigged vessel is hugely rewarding.  As Crew, we help to teach 4^th and 5^th graders history, team building and self reliance.  Watching youth work, again and again to set the mainsail as a team, then seeing the smiles on their faces as they get it.  How rewarding is that?  We do the same for employees of businesses and corporations.  As Friends Good Will takes the Museum’s visitors out on day sails, an extraordinary world is opened up for them.   And, because we teach, we also learn, and grow, to our own benefit. 

Each time volunteer Marcia Flynn is asked when she will buy her own boat, she responds, “Why? I can sail aboard a tallship and a champion (the Museum’s racing yacht Bernida) any time I like.”  And let’s face it, you just can’t beat the beauty of a sunset when viewed from the deck of a tallship. 

Basic Seamanship is taught in four parts, with Part I held on Saturday, March 28, at 1:00 pm.  Part II is May 2^nd, Part III May 9^th, and the final session Part IV is on May 16^th. Completing all four Basic Seamanship classes allows you the opportunity to become part of the Ship’s Company.  You must be a Museum member to crew Friends Good Will.  All courses are free to Museum members.  Membership in the Michigan Maritime Museum also gives you free access to the Museum and to all kinds of events and classes, including courses on April 26^th that include Sail Theory and Sailing Vintage Sailboats, and much more! Why wait?  To register, and for more information, call 1-800-747-3810, or email volunteer@michiganmaritimemuseum.org.

Michigan Tall Ship featured in major motion picture

Champion  (photo by Maritime Heritage Alliance)

Early June 2012 saw the Traverse City premier of the independent feature film “Hide Away” starring Josh Lucas, James Cromwell and Ayelet Zurer.  At the heart of the movie, filmed in late 2009 in the Grand Traverse area, is the 39 foot cutter Champion, owned and operated by The Maritime Heritage Alliance.  The Champion, renamed Hesperus in the film, is a 1968 Concordia-built wooden, traditionally-rigged cutter which offers emotional deliverance to Josh Lucas’s character as he restores her from a dilapidated state.  The real-life mission of The Champion may be more poignant (and worthy of a movie in its own right) in that she actually serves as a ship of therapy for troubled youth in the Maritime Heritage Alliance’s S.A.I.L. program.  In the film, a well-worn Herperus is purchased by a distraught Josh Lucas who uses the ship as a live-aboard project through a northern Michigan fall, winter and spring. Other sail craft-themed scenes are sprinkled throughout the movie, including a clarification of the old saying about “the two happiest days in a sailor’s life….”.  What may be noteworthy here is not that a Michigan ship, The Champion, has a starring role in a feature movie, but why more films produced in Michigan don’t take advantage of our sailing heritage for their stories.  Aside from documentaries, it appears that Michigan nautical lore and sail-craft are still an untapped resource.

Hesperus (photo acquired via itunes.apple.com)

After making the rounds at various film festivals under the title “A Year in Mooring", “Hide Away” has had a limited theatrical release and is currently available on-demand. The feature will be available on DVD by mid-August through many media outlets. Those wishing to connect with the movie experience, and help with the therapeutic mission of The Champion, can purchase a chartered afternoon cruise from Traverse City to Bower’s Harbor (the site of the filming of the movie), or other locations in the Grand Traverse area.  For information on charters and the S.A.I.L. program, please contact Captain Rorke Miller at 231.577.WIND or visit the program’s website at www.sailchampion.org.